Zhiying's EDF 5300 Blog

After moving from her hometown, Alabama, to Chicago, Marva Collins worked as a teacher at a public elementary school in Chicago. It was here that she encountered the widespread  neglect and low expectations placed on Black and low-income students, and therefore, she was determined to establish her own school (Westside Preparatory School) and apply her teaching methods.  In this post, we’ll dissect Marva Collins’s emotional journey as depicted in the 1981 film  The Marva Collins Story and her book Marva Collins' Way. We will  trace her initial frustration, her determined reappraisals during struggle, and her ultimate goal validation to reveal how her inner dialogue built an educational revolution. Movie: The Marva Collins Story Before Building Her School: The Appraisals of Frustration That Forged her Goal Marva’s initial appraisals as a teacher in the Chicago public school system gave rise to her frustration and anger towards conventional education. Her primary...

  Born on August 31, 1936, in Monroeville, Alabama, Marva Collins was a pioneering American educator.  She earned a Bachelor's degree in Secretarial Sciences from Clark College (now Clark Atlanta University). After moving to Chicago, she became a highly effective medical secretary before fulfilling her dream to teach, eventually spending 14 years in the Chicago Public Schools system.   In the 1970s, Chicago's public schools were widely considered to be  in a state of crisis. Classrooms were overcrowded, resources were thin, and a pervasive culture of low expectations plagued the system. Specifically, the children from low-income, predominantly Black neighborhoods were often mislabeled as "learning disabled," "disadvantaged," or "unteachable," "incapable of high achievement." However, it was Marva Collins who was brave enough to declare a radical idea: the problem was not the children; it was the teaching. With a firm belief in students...